11 Book Industry Organisations to Follow on Twitter

Feb 13, 2017

1. International Publishers Association

The IPA is a federation of national and regional specialist publishers’ associations, comprising more than sixty organisations from over fifty countries. It works for the interests of publishers, defending and promoting copyright freedom worldwide. It’s an accredited non-governmental organisation and tweets from @IntPublishers.

2. Independent Publishers Guild

The Independent Publishers Guild is the leading trade association representing independent publishers. It sets out to celebrate and encourage the creativity and enthusiasm of independent publishers by helping to establish a community where advice and information can be shared for mutual benefit. Active for more than fifty years, membership is at its highest level ever with over 600 companies represented.

Tweeting regularly from @ipghq, they give useful information ranging from awards and blog pieces, to HMRC information and piracy avoidance.

3. The Publishers Association

Tweeting from @PublishersAssoc, the Publishers Association provides information and useful links for the publishing industry with a particular emphasis on children’s and educational materials.
This is no surprise as it’s a key area of interest for the organisation, which represents over a hundred companies involved in publishing learning materials, academic journals and children’s books. Its aim is to give voice to such specialist publishers through political, media and industry stakeholders.

4. Booksellers Association

The Booksellers Association is a membership organisation that claims to represent over 95% of bookshops in the British Isles. It aims to support and give advice to its members in order to enable them to increase their sales through improving the retail experience. They offer a business support helpline and other help facilities to make the bookselling business work better for all concerned.

Tweeting from @BAbooksellers, they publicise events and opportunities that help to protect and promote the interests of booksellers across the UK and Ireland.

5. National Book Tokens

Among the Booksellers Association’s initiatives is the national book token scheme, which comprises the only gift card that’s accepted by all major chains and independent booksellers across the UK and Ireland. Nowadays they can even be used online to buy eBooks too. For book buyers and publishers alike, these have long proved to be a major aid to selling books. Easily given as a present and sent by post, they can be exchanged for any book according to the reader’s choice. All the latest news and changes to the scheme can be found at @book_tokens.

6. Professional Publishers Association

Representing over two hundred companies and covering consumer magazine publishers and business-to-business information providers, this body tweets from @PPA_Live where they promote the protection and advancement of business information alongside providing a wide range of resources to those working in their industry.

7. White Fox

Marketing themselves as the largest curated network of publishing skills in the world, WhiteFox tweet from @wearewhitefox. They provide a wide range of publishing services to publishers, agents and authors, assisting with everything from strategic direction to publicity and distribution.

8. Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals

The leading professional body for librarians and knowledge managers, CILIP aim to put information and professional library skills at the heart of a democratic and prosperous society. Using a network of regional associations, they provide a resource for support and professional development for all who work in book and information curation.

Their tweets from @CILIPinfo are very much towards the library sector, but cover many ongoing publishing initiatives too.

9. Book Industry Communication

The BIC is an independent organisation that’s supported by a range of industry bodies. Its aim is to promote supply chain efficiency across the publishing world, including e-commerce. It advocates for the application of standardised processes and procedures in publishing.

The @BIC1UK twitter account has a high level of interactivity, from where it tries to flag up new trends in publishing as they occur.

10. Nielson Book Data

Nielson compiles market leading worldwide datasets relating to the publishing industry. They work with all kinds of publishers to analyse trends and collate product data. Their database holds records of more than 25 million titles and is available to the publishing industry through its search and discovery tools.

Their aim is to maximise the business efficiencies in the book market in order to provide savings right across the industry. To this end they tweet choice snippets of data from @NielsonBook.

11. British Library

Where would we be without the British Library with its unrivalled catalogues, collections and services for UK publishers and book lovers? So lastly, keep up to date with all the news and events from our favourite institution by following @britishlibrary.